Midlife MavericksI built my portfolio career pregnant, on bed rest.
I don’t recommend it.
I’d already left my corporate role. I didn’t have the luxury of testing things quietly while a salary paid the bills. I had to figure it out with a baby coming and a body that wasn’t cooperating. It worked, but there were months where the only thing between me and panic was stubbornness.
I suggest there are easier ways.
If you’re reading this from inside a corporate job, with a salary still landing on the 25th, you have something I didn’t: a runway. Use it. Build the first strand of your portfolio career while you’re still employed, so that when you leave, you leave with proof, not hope.
Why You Should Start Before You Leave
The biggest advantage of building while employed is that you’re not desperate. You can test ideas, say no to bad-fit clients, charge properly, and walk away from anything that doesn’t work, because your mortgage isn’t riding on it.
The second advantage is less obvious: proof. By the time you leave, you don’t have a business idea. You have a business. You have clients. You have revenue. You have evidence that people will pay for what you know. That changes the entire emotional experience of leaving. You go from “I hope this works” to “I know this works because it already does.”
Herminia Ibarra, who studies career transitions at London Business School, calls this “identity play.” You experiment with different roles and versions of yourself in low-stakes environments before committing fully. You don’t think your way into a new career. You test your way into one.
Step 1: Figure Out What You’d Sell
You already know this. You just haven’t framed it as something someone would buy.
Think about the questions people already ask you. Not your team, not your direct reports. People outside your immediate circle. Former colleagues. Friends in other industries. People you meet at events who say “can I pick your brain about something?”
Those questions are market research. If three different people have asked you the same type of question in the last six months, that’s demand. You’re just not charging for it yet.
The simplest first offer is consulting. Take exactly what you do in your current role and offer it to a company that isn’t your employer. If you’re excellent at operations and systems in financial services, offer that skill to a tech company, or to firms in financial services in a different market. The expertise transfers. The context changes.
You’re not building a new skill. You’re putting an existing skill in a new container.
But there’s a second path. Some people’s first strand has nothing to do with their day job.
I know people in technology sales who’ve been quietly building coaching practices on the side. They invest in training, they take on pro bono clients, they get better at it over time. The coaching has zero overlap with their corporate role. It scratches a completely different itch: the part of them that wants to help people grow, not close deals.
Both paths are valid. One is faster to monetise (selling what you already do). The other is more creatively fulfilling (building something new). Many portfolio careers end up including both. The point is to start with whichever one you’ll actually do, not the one that looks most logical on paper.
Step 2: Check Your Contract
I cannot stress this enough. Before you do anything, read your employment contract. The whole thing. Look for:
Non-compete clauses. These restrict you from working with direct competitors for a period after you leave. They sometimes also apply while you’re employed. Understand exactly what’s restricted and what isn’t.
Moonlighting policies. Some contracts explicitly prohibit outside work. Some require you to declare it. Some say nothing. Know which one you’re dealing with.
Intellectual property clauses. Some employers claim ownership of anything you create during your employment, even outside of work hours. If you’re building a side consulting offer and your contract says everything you produce belongs to them, you have a problem.
Client solicitation restrictions. Most contracts prevent you from approaching your employer’s clients. That’s reasonable. It also means your first consulting clients need to come from somewhere else.
If any of this feels unclear, get thirty minutes with an employment lawyer. It’s a few hundred pounds and it will save you from a situation that could cost you your job or your exit terms.
Step 3: Find Your First Client (You Probably Already Know Them)
The first client in a portfolio career almost always comes from your existing network. Not from LinkedIn. Not from a website. Not from a marketing funnel. From someone who already knows what you can do.
Here’s where it gets uncomfortable.
I hear this constantly: “People ask me for advice all the time, but I can’t charge them.” Or: “They wouldn’t pay me. We’re friends.” Or: “I give them really good, specific, applicable advice, but asking for money would make it weird.”
Let me reframe that. You are providing professional-grade expertise, for free, to people who have a business problem. The advice you’re giving them would cost thousands if they hired a consultancy. You’re not being generous. You’re being underpriced.
You don’t need to invoice your friends. But you do need to recognise that the demand is already proven. If people are asking for your help, the market exists. Now you need to find someone who isn’t a friend, who has the same problem, and who has a budget.
That usually means one degree of separation. Ask the person you’ve been helping for free: “Do you know anyone else dealing with this? I’m starting to do some consulting in this area.” That’s it. That’s the sales pitch. It doesn’t require a website. It doesn’t require a logo. It requires one conversation.
Step 4: Start Small and Contained
Your first consulting gig should be small. A defined project, a clear scope, a fixed timeline. One month. Maybe two. A fee of £3,000 to £5,000 for a specific deliverable.
Why small?
Because you’re still employed. You don’t have infinite hours. A contained project lets you test whether you can deliver alongside your day job without burning out.
Because you need proof, not scale. One completed project with a happy client is worth more than a grand strategy for a business that doesn’t exist yet.
Because it de-risks the money conversation. Asking someone for £5,000 to solve a specific problem they already have is a completely different conversation from asking them to put you on retainer indefinitely. Start with the version that’s easier to say yes to.
And because it teaches you things a business plan never will. How long does the work actually take? What parts do you enjoy? What parts drain you? How does it feel to juggle this with your day job? Is this the strand you want to build on, or do you need to try something different?
Step 5: Build Visibility Without Blowing Your Cover
One of the biggest fears I hear is “what if my employer finds out?” And it’s a legitimate concern. You’re not being paranoid. Some employers react badly to employees who show signs of building something on the side.
But building visibility and building a public profile are different things.
You don’t need to post on LinkedIn announcing your consulting practice. You don’t need a website. You don’t need a personal brand strategy. Not yet.
What you can do is quieter. Write about your area of expertise in a way that’s about the topic, not about your services. Share observations at industry events. Say yes to a podcast invitation if one comes. Offer to speak on a panel. Contribute to a Substack or publication in your field.
None of this advertises a business. All of it builds the reputation that makes the business viable when you’re ready.
The people who do this well are playing a longer game. They’re becoming known for knowing something, not for selling something. By the time they leave their corporate role, people already associate them with a specific expertise. The clients come because the visibility was already there.
Step 6: Add the Second Strand
Once the first strand is working, even at a low level, you’ll start to see the second one. It usually shows up as a recurring request that’s adjacent to your consulting but different enough to be its own thing.
Maybe clients keep asking you to train their teams, and you realise there’s a coaching or mentoring strand. Maybe you’ve been writing about your expertise and the writing itself starts attracting opportunities. Maybe someone asks you to sit on an advisory board.
Don’t force it. Let it emerge. The whole point of a portfolio career is that the strands develop organically from what people value in you. You don’t need to design five income streams on a spreadsheet and launch them simultaneously. You build the first, let the second reveal itself, and add deliberately from there.
The Timeline Nobody Talks About
Building a portfolio career while employed is not a three-month project. For most people, the realistic timeline looks something like this:
Months 1-3: Identify what you’d sell. Check your contract. Have exploratory conversations. No revenue yet.
Months 4-6: Land your first small consulting project. Deliver it. Learn what works. Start building quiet visibility.
Months 7-12: Second or third project. Repeat clients or referrals. The strand is now generating consistent (if small) income alongside your salary. You can see the shape of what the portfolio could become.
Months 12-18: The portfolio has enough traction and evidence that leaving your job becomes a calculated decision, not a gamble. You know your offer works. You know people will pay. You have a pipeline forming.
That’s the slow version. Some people move faster. But almost nobody does this in under six months with a full-time job and a family. Set your expectations accordingly.
What I’d Tell Myself If I Were Starting Over
I’d start with one consulting project while employed. Something small, contained, and non-competing. I’d resist the urge to build a website, choose a business name, or design a logo before I had a paying client. I’d take the person already asking me for free advice and ask them to introduce me to someone with a budget. I’d check my contract before I did anything else.
And I wouldn’t do it on bed rest.
What Comes Next
This is the second article in the portfolio career series. Next: the detailed breakdown of portfolio career vs. fractional vs. freelance, and how to know which model (or combination) fits your situation.
If you want these in your inbox, subscribe to the Midlife Mavericks newsletter. I write every Wednesday about building a career and a business that fits who you’ve become, not who you used to be.
And if you want someone to pressure-test your plan, I do coaching and skills audits for women building portfolio careers from corporate experience.
Frequently Asked Questions
It depends entirely on your contract. Many employment contracts have moonlighting clauses or require you to declare outside work. Some say nothing at all. Read yours carefully and get legal advice if anything is ambiguous. Don’t assume you’re free to operate just because nobody has told you otherwise.
Non-compete clauses vary enormously in scope and enforceability. Some restrict you from working with direct competitors only. Some are broader. The key is understanding exactly what’s restricted and designing your first consulting offer around industries, geographies, or segments that aren’t covered. An employment lawyer can review this in a single session.
Start with your existing network. Not cold outreach, not LinkedIn, not a website. Think about who has already asked for your professional opinion in the last year. Ask them if they know anyone dealing with the same challenge who might want structured help. One introduction is all you need.
For a defined one-month project, £3,000 to £5,000 is a reasonable starting point for senior professionals. Price on the deliverable, not on hours. You can adjust upward once you have proof that the market will bear it.
Keep the scope small and the timeline fixed. Most first projects can be delivered in 10-15 hours of work spread over a month, fitting into evenings and weekends. If the project requires more than that, you’re scoping too large for this stage.
When you have repeatable evidence that people will pay for your expertise. One project could be a fluke. Two or three projects with happy clients and referrals is a pattern. The goal is to leave with proof, not hope.
